The 1913 Liberty Head nickel is an American five-cent piece which was produced in extremely limited quantities without the authority of the United States Mint, making it one of the best-known and most coveted rarities in American numismatics. In 1972, one specimen of the five cent coin became the first coin to command a price of US$100,000; in 1996, another specimen became the first to break the million-US$ barrier. It is also rumored that if one were to be found in perfect condition, it could be worth over 20 million dollars. In 2003 one coin was sold for almost US$3 million. In 2010, the Olsen piece sold for US$ 3.7 million at a public auction. Only five examples are known to exist: two in museums and three in private collections.
Read more about 1913 Liberty Head Nickel: Origin, Pedigree, Eliasberg Specimen, Olsen Specimen, Norweb Specimen, Walton Specimen, McDermott Specimen, Books
Famous quotes containing the words liberty, head and/or nickel:
“The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine having yielded their crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become a fiction of the past,—as it is to some extent a fiction of the present,—the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It was always startling to discover so plain a trail of civilized man there. I remember that I was strangely affected, when we were returning, by the sight of a ring-bolt well drilled into a rock, and fastened with lead, at the head of this solitary Ambejijis Lake.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Castro couldn’t even go to the bathroom unless the Soviet Union put the nickel in the toilet.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)